


If Necessary

by eeyore9990, wildamongwolves



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Derek Feels, Emissary Stiles Stilinski, Emissary in Training Stiles Stilinski, Everyone is Part of the Pack, Fluff and Angst, Inspired by Art, M/M, Magic has consequences, Monster of the Week, Romance, Self-Harm, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Sterek Reverse Bang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 11:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15218375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eeyore9990/pseuds/eeyore9990, https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildamongwolves/pseuds/wildamongwolves
Summary: In the summer between high school and college, when most people get to be lazy and hang onto the last remnants of their childhood, Stiles is training to become the Hale Pack emissary (as soon as he can bully Derek into accepting him), supervising Pack training... and trying to figure out why so many people are acting so weird.It's probably nothing.Right?





	1. It's Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: this fic assumes an Everybody Lives/Nobody Dies AU in which the True Alpha storyline never happened. Derek is the Alpha and through trial and error, he's actually become damn good at it.
> 
> This fic would not be possible without the inspiration of the lovely art by wildamongwolves and the beta talents of drgrlfriend and badwolfbadwolf. My deepest thanks to the SterekReverseBang mods for running this show.

"Do you want it?"

Stiles glanced over his shoulder, flinching from the sunlight reflecting off the broken pane in the front window of the old Hale house and then shimmying sideways until Derek's bulk was shielding him from it. Seeing the dripping bottle of lukewarm water Derek held in one hand, Stiles smiled and reached for it, taking it before Derek could change his mind.

"Thanks, man," he remembered to say after twisting off the cap and taking a healthy swallow. "I knew that _Leadership 101_ book would come in handy."

When no response came to that bit of teasing, Stiles glanced questioningly at Derek, who was staring at his own now-empty hand with a baffled sort of look on his face. 

"'Sup, dude?"

"That's not— I just…" Derek let out a half-growling sigh before dropping down on the unbroken porch step beside Stiles and snatching the water back. Grimacing, he used the bottom of his shirt to wipe off the mouth of the bottle before draining the remaining liquid in three long, throat-baring swallows.

Stiles dragged his gaze away from Derek's bobbing adam's apple, wishing for another bottle of water to quench his own suddenly too-dry throat. "Okay, then," he muttered, lips twisting when he heard how raspy his voice sounded.

Thankfully, Scott chose that moment to drop his left elbow again, allowing Erica to get in a solid punch even _Stiles_ could hear, distracting them both from whatever awkwardness might have ensued.

Good ol' Scotty.

While Derek was busy berating Scott for his poor fighting technique, Stiles ambled toward the cooler placed carefully over the rotted-out wood in the corner of the porch. Flipping open the top, he wrinkled his nose at the musty scent that rose from inside it and grabbed two more bottles that floated in the remains of last week's ice.

"Note to self," he muttered. "Bring bleach and another bag of ice tomorrow before we all end up with…" And then he stopped, blinking rapidly for a moment as he realized he had no idea what sort of illness one might contract from mold-tainted ex-ice. 

Shoving both bottles under his left elbow, he reached into his pocket for his phone, intending to google it. As he turned, phone in hand, he collided with Peter, who was just _standing there_ like a creeper, staring out into the distance, pupils reduced to pinpoints of darkness.

Something about the look of him made the all the hair on Stiles' body stand up. It was the same look an animal might have before an earthquake.

"What is it, Lassie?" he asked in an excited voice, brutally quashing his momentary uneasiness under a healthy dose of mockery. "Did little Timmy fall down the well?"

Peter blinked slowly, just once, and then bared his teeth at Stiles before sauntering down the steps, not even breaking stride when he stepped over the broken one. Stiles watched him cross the sun-browned grass to pass by Derek.

It was only because he was watching Peter so closely that he saw the look Derek and Peter exchanged. It was… heavy. Laden with meaning and understanding. A world of information was exchanged between them in the blink of an eye.

And then Peter was gone, walking straight into the tree line and disappearing through the thick brush.

The uneasiness returned in a heartbeat. A shiver went down Stiles' spine, a coldness settling in the pit of his stomach that no amount of California summer heat could touch.  


* * *

  
At the end of training, when Scott and Isaac and Erica were chasing each other around with t-shirts wet from the stale cooler water, Derek found Stiles again.

"The bite," he said, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow and cautiously accepting the bottle of water Stiles thrust at him. 

"What about it?" Stiles asked, his mind already formulating the best google search terms to find answers to Derek's next question.

"Do you want it?"

And that… Stiles' brain went quiet. Everything inside him just stopped for a tiny moment before restarting at light speed. His mouth shaped words his tongue was too frozen to form. His hands jerked in front of him.

Some small, separate part of his over-active brain noticed how _normal_ everything around him looked. Stiles himself may be ready to lose his mind because of Derek's so-casual question, but the pack was running around like it was any other day. 

A year ago, the jump in Stiles' heart rate would have raised concern in at least _Scott_ but, well. It had been a hell of a year. 

That thought helped, actually, steadied Stiles on his feet. After dealing with a kanima, a darach, an entire _pack_ of alphas, and a nogitsune, one little question wasn't going to break Stiles.

They definitely couldn't have this conversation _here_ , though. And damn Derek for attempting it.

Stifling a sigh, Stiles called out, "Derek and I are running in to town to grab some more water for tomorrow."

Boyd said something too low for Stiles to catch, causing Derek to snort. "We won't." At Stiles' questioning look, Derek shrugged. "Ice."

Stiles nodded, wrinkling his nose. "And Clorox wipes for the cooler."  


* * *

  
Thankfully driving gave him something to do with his hands and cleared his head. By the time they were turning on to the paved road, Stiles felt slightly more prepared for the coming conversation.

"Why now?"

Derek's answering silence rang in the jeep's interior, underscoring the worrying whine the engine had been making for the better part of a month.

Stiles lifted his hand from the gear shift and adjusted his rearview mirror until he could see his own eyes in it. His heart stuttered in his chest when he caught sight of their reflection; the trees lining the road cast just enough shadow into the jeep to turn his eyes dark. Too dark. With suddenly-sweaty palms, he shoved the mirror until the only thing he could see was what was behind him, clenching his teeth against the panic that thrummed through him. 

Desperate for a distraction, Stiles pressed for the answer Derek was obviously doing his best to avoid.

"Come on, Derek. It's been more than two years since you became an alpha. I think it's a legitimate question. Why _now?_ "

"You…" Derek shifted against his seat with a squeak of rusty springs, and from the corner of his eye, Stiles could see the way he turned to stare out at the trees whipping past beyond the window. Of maybe he was watching the moon rise into the slowly darkening sky.

It was only eight days past full. 

"I didn't think you wanted it," Derek finally said. 

There was enough weight in those words that Stiles took the time to choose his own very carefully. "I don't, but not because I think it's a curse or… What you said to Scott that time? I think you're right. It _is_ a gift. But…" Stiles flicked on his blinker and used the turn onto Crescent Street to think of how to word what he wanted to say. "There are things I can do as a human. Things you can't."

"Mountain ash."

"That too, but there are other things." Stiles pulled into the Stop N Go and parked, but left the engine rumbling as he turned to look Derek in the eye for the first time. "Derek. Why now?"

Derek's eyes flickered around before he met Stiles' stubborn look with a sigh. "I… I wanted to. Back then. But everything _happened—_ "

"Everything happens so much," Stiles agreed with a wry twist of his lips.

"Shut up. I'm trying to… Isaac needed it. Erica too."

"Jackson?"

"Was a mistake." At Stiles' eye-roll, Derek snorted. "I knew it, but I was an idiot who couldn't admit I was wrong."

"Plus ten bonus points for admitting it, but minus a thousand for inappropriate use of the past tense, Hale."

"Fuck off."

Stiles thought about prodding him again, but the way Derek sat back, looking everywhere but at Stiles told him to be still. This amount of skittishness needed a steady, patient hand. So he waited.

"I wanted to," Derek said again, his voice oddly rough. Clearing his throat, he started to say something, but then… stopped, his lips parted until just the faintest edge of his front teeth showed between them.

"Why didn't you?"

"Erica, Boyd, the others. If the bite didn't take…" Derek gave an uncomfortable shrug, eyes cast down at his hands. The ' _if they died, I wouldn't have cared'_ hung silent and damning in the air between them.

But the other side of the equation speared through Stiles like lightning. "And now? Why are you less afraid of the consequences of biting me _now?_ "

"I…" Derek looked up, straight at Stiles, his eyes cloudy and troubled. "I want you to be safe. We heal—"

"So do I—"

Fingers pressed against his lips, cutting off their too-familiar argument. "We heal _faster_. You know this. And something…" Derek looked back out the windshield, then sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I need my pack to be safe."

"Then accept me as your emissary." When Derek stiffened, Stiles let out an angry huff of breath. "You think I'm too young for that kind of commitment; I get it. I heard you the first five hundred times we talked about this. But you have to understand that I need to protect you too. The pack is my family. This is how, _as a human,_ I can protect _you_."

When Derek opened his mouth to argue, Stiles cut him off. "You can't _not_ see the hypocrisy in offering me a life-changing bite right now, but then turning around and using my age as an excuse to deny me my rightful place in the pack."

Derek bared his teeth in a too-human grimace. "It's not the same thing at all. If I turned you, you'd still be able to leave. You could petition any other pack at any time. As emissary, you're stuck in _my_ pack. Forever."

"I don't consider it being stuck, jackass. I consider it a choice. One that I would gladly make every day. This pack is…" Stiles sighed and slumped back against his seat, the word _mine_ barely trapped behind his teeth.

"I'll think about it," Derek offered quietly after a too-long silence. 

It was more than Stiles had ever gotten from him before, but it seemed more like a brush-off than any plain 'no' ever had. Twisting the key in the ignition, Stiles didn't even wait for his engine to sputter to a whining halt before he shouldered open his door and went to hop down.

A hand on his elbow stopped him. "Hey."

Stiles started to jerk his arm free when Derek tightened his grip. Submitting with ill grace, Stiles cocked his head to the side. "Yeah?"

"I mean it. I'll think about it. But you have to promise you will too."

"It's all I think about anymore."

Derek's grip relaxed, his fingers sliding slowly from around Stiles' arm. "That's not what the smell of your bedroom suggests," he teased cautiously.

Just like that, Stiles knew the real conversation was over. Sliding out of his jeep, he called out, "You don't know what I get up to in my fantasies, Hale. I could have kinks you've never heard of."

"Pfft. I lived in New York. There _are_ no kinks I've never heard of. I could probably teach you some."

Stiles popped open the door of the outside freezer and grabbed a bag of ice, hefting it onto his shoulder as he let the door swing closed with a muffled bang. "Is that an offer?" Even knowing Derek's teasing was meant as a joke, Stiles couldn't help the way a spear of _want_ stabbed through him.

"Keep dreaming."

The familiar banter carried them through the store and only stalled long enough for them to stand somewhat politely in the short line before picking up again as they exited the store.

"Four ninety-nine for some off-brand disinfecting wipes is a rip-off. We could have got them for half that price at Target," Derek grumbled.

"Quit your bitching. The ice is _already_ melting; if we had to make a Target run too, we'd have made this stop for nothing."

Derek grunted, quickly wiping out the cooler before dumping the case of water in the bottom. 

A glob of icy melt-off dribbled down Stiles' back, making him hiss at the cold before shoving Derek out of the way and dropping the bag into the cooler. Ripping a hole in the bag, Stiles shook the ice around until the lid of the cooler fit back down evenly, creating a tight seal.

Balling up the plastic, Stiles turned around to find a trash can only to stop. Squinting at the tree-line, he tilted his head back and forth.

"Are we standing around staring at the sky all day, or are we going back to the house?" Derek asked, startling Stiles.

Stiles opened his mouth to say something, only to close it again when nothing came out.

"What's wrong?" Derek asked.

"It's… I dunno. It's like something's missing."

"We got everything on the list?"

"Not from the store, ding dong. From…" Stiles studied the horizon again, then turned a full circle. The nagging sensation didn't ease, but he couldn't pinpoint what exactly was missing, so… Shrugging it off, he muttered, "S probably nothing."

Derek turned to look in the direction Stiles had been and went perfectly still. The look on his face was eerily similar to the one Stiles had seen on Peter's earlier. Then he blinked, the intensity washing out of his features from one breath to the next, and he turned back to Stiles. 

"Call Deaton. You're right that it's probably nothing, but..." Derek lifted his face to the breeze, eyes closing as he breathed in the scent of approaching night. Shaking his head a little, he shrugged. "I'm sure it's nothing. Let's get back before the sun sets. I don't want to have to rip Jackson's throat out when he starts whining again."  


* * *

  
"Yo, daddio! How's the biz? What's the haps?" Stiles plopped the drink tray and one of the Subway bags onto the desk in front of his dad, then untwisted his own bag's handles from around his middle finger, flexing his entire hand to get blood flowing back into the digit. He would never understand how those bags _always_ seemed to twist up a million times on the short walk from the parking spaces out front to his dad's office.

"All quiet on the western front, for which we give eternal thanks."

Both men took a moment to share a meaningful look before unwrapping their sandwiches and then, with dual eye-rolls, switching with each other when they realized simultaneously that each had the other's sandwich. 

"More people getting lost than usual." The Sheriff shrugged and took a massive bite of his whole wheat veggie sandwich, eyebrow raised in question. 

Stiles leaned back in his seat, forehead wrinkling as he tried to think of anything that could account for that. "A few things I know of off the top of my head could lead people off course or confuse them. I'd need more information to pin it down to a specific species." When a pickle dropped out of the end of his sandwich onto his shirt, Stiles picked it up and popped it in his mouth, chewing around it as he said, "But no one's missing?"

"No one _reported_ , anyway." His dad handed him a napkin, just as Stiles was about to bring his shirt to his mouth and suck the pickle juice from it.

"Mmm. I'll ask Deaton. Derek wanted me to call him anyway." Upon saying that, Stiles went still, reminded of the previous day's weirdness. "Hey, but keep an eye out. And carry your good bullets. It's probably nothing, but Derek and Peter are on edge and there's something…." Stiles stopped, frowning. "Something's _off_. Not sure what and not sure if it even means anything."

The Sheriff grunted his acquiescence, not bothering to stop eating for such a vague warning. 

Ten minutes later, meals completed in the silence of the starved, Stiles sat back and patted his full stomach, completely satisfied. "Talked to Derek about the emissary thing again," he muttered, watching his dad closely. 

John glanced up at that, drink halfway to his mouth. "And?"

"He didn't say no this time. Said he'll _think about it_." Stiles added air quotes with a lazy stretch of fingers. "No, actually, he said he'd _really_ think about it. He's still convinced that I'm going to wake up in five years or whatever and feel like I've been cheated out of a normal life." 

They shared a look at that, one part wry amusement, fifty parts exasperation.

"It's like he's never met you, kid. Anyone who's spent five minutes in your presence should know better than to ever expect 'normal' from you. What does he think you've been spending all this time with Deaton for? Your health?" The Sheriff balled up his trash and shot it into the can by the door, fist pumping when it bounced off the rim and into the bin. "Three points!"

"Tell me about it," Stiles said with an eye roll, standing to throw his own trash away. Experience had taught him long ago not to attempt a shot of more than a five inch distance. It never ended well and he'd end up having to walk to the bin regardless. "While it's not as bad as it used to be back in the beginning, Deaton still pisses me off on the daily with his vague mumbo jumbo nonsense. It's like the man never learned how to _communicate_. Thank god for google or I'd have torn my hair out long ago."

As he was turning back to his dad, something outside the window of the Sheriff's private office caught Stiles' eye. Blinking, he turned back to see Jordan Parrish standing at attention in the middle of the bullpen, papers scattered around his feet as his raised hand grasped empty air. Slowly opening the door, Stiles stepped out of his dad's office, approaching Parrish warily.

When he drew close enough, he could feel the heat emanating from the man and see that his eyes had begun to glow.

"Parrish?" Stiles whispered, reaching a hand out but not touching. Not yet.

"Deputy." 

Stiles jolted at the firm command in his dad's voice. Turning, he saw his dad standing in the doorway of his office, obviously having followed Stiles.

Parrish blinked, slow and sleepy, before turning his head to stare first at Stiles and then at the Sheriff. "Hnn? Sir? Did you need something?" With each word, a little more _humanity_ returned to his bearing.

"You okay, man? You, uh. You spaced out there for a minute." Stiles took that last step forward, his outstretched hand finally settling on Parrish's arm. He tried to ignore the way the buttons on Parrish's uniform looked a little _melty_.

Parrish blinked again, faster this time, before looking around and then down at the papers strewn on the floor. A soft curse left his lips and he knelt to gather them back up, Stiles' hand sliding free.

"Yeah, sorry. Don't know what came over me. Felt like…" Parrish looked up again, peering out the large station window to the line of cars idling at a red light. "I dunno." Shaking his head, he huffed out a little laugh before pulling a face at Stiles. "I'm sure it's nothing more than the usual weirdness."

"Yeah," Stiles agreed softly, more unsettled than ever. "Nothing." 

The Sheriff's drawn-out sigh drew Stiles' attention. He watched, a thread of relief winding through him, as his dad exchanged his magazine of normal bullets with the special ones he got monthly from Chris Argent. They shared a long look before Stiles decided it was time to go have a talk with Deaton.  


* * *

  
"Why did you do it?" Stiles asked, measuring powder out into a small jar, helpfully allowing him to avoid eye contact with Deaton.

There was a long pause before he heard Deaton's dry tones ask him, "Would you care to elaborate?"

Stiles sighed, drumming his fingers on table before turning and meeting Deaton's gaze. "Why did you agree to train me?"

At that, Deaton smiled. Well, as much as the enigmatic man ever did. "You showed a remarkable aptitude for the druidic skills."

Stiles held up one finger, lips pursed to argue, when Deaton cut over him smoothly. "I know, Mr. Stilinski. 'Still not a druid.'" He shook his head and turned back to his own work. 

It had taken the better part of a year for them to be able to work like this. It was mostly silent in the brightly lit room — _'The dim dungeons of fantasy realms are good only for practitioners of mistakes, Mr. Stilinski'_ — with the exception of the muted sounds of chopping and scraping and mashing. 

"Is there a reason you're asking that now?" Deaton asked, his voice barely disturbing the flow Stiles had going.

Blinking, Stiles looked at him, a question in his mind before he realized what Deaton was asking and reversed course. "Oh. I talked to Derek about it again. He's levelled up from 'No, Stiles, you're an infant' to 'I'll think about it,' so. That's something, I guess."

Deaton's hand settled lightly on Stiles' shoulder — he must be working with something inert, then — with the barest hint of a squeeze. "Be gentle with him. It isn't _you_ he mistrusts. It will take time and patience on your part."

Rolling his eyes, Stiles grumbled, "Patience? It's like you don't know me at all." Contrary to his words, his hands moved slowly and _patiently_ as he separated tiny seeds from their pods, both parts useful in their own right. "It's just frustrating, because I could be so much more use to the pack as an emissary. And it's not like I can take the quick and easy route like you did." He slanted a sly grin toward Deaton, who just shook his head and continued with his own work.

"I don't know where you get these ideas, Mr. Stilinski," Deaton murmured. "The reason Talia accepted my pledge had nothing to do with any illicit affairs between us. She was happily married. No, she accepted me because her old emissary, my mentor, was ready to retire."

"Did you ever think about becoming Derek's emissary?"

Deaton's mouth turned down at the corners, his hands going still as he stared down at the table before him. "One thing that can never be gained back is broken trust. The night my alpha died is the night I lost the trust of her children." Deaton looked back up, his normally flat stare holding something far more fragile than anything Stiles had ever seen before. "Mistakes can be forgiven, I suppose, but the bond between alpha and emissary is one that has no room for even a hint of doubt."

Stiles' lips parted and a soft breath left him. "It wasn't your fault. He knows that." As much as Derek blamed himself for the fire, it was a wonder there was room in him for placing the weight on anyone else's shoulders.

"Perhaps not, but Laura? Oh, Laura had plenty to say on the subject." Deaton shrugged, like the entire conversation wasn't an emotional minefield. "And after the two of them left town, well. _I_ decided to retire. Peter didn't have much use for either of my professional skills in his state. As in magic, there are consequences for every choice one makes."

Deaton stepped toward Stiles, his face once again a blank slate as he checked over Stiles' work and nodded his approval. "Now," he said, his voice turning brisk, "you didn't come see me to help prepare ingredients."

"Hey! I'm helpful. I am _full_ of help." Catching sight of Deaton's dubious look, Stiles rolled his eyes and grimaced. "Okay, yeah, I wanted to talk to you about something, but I don't exactly know how to describe it." Scooping the seeds and pods into separate envelopes and labelling them carefully, Stiles took a moment to run through everything in his head.

Turning back to Deaton, Stiles wiped his hands on an offered towel and said, "Okay, so. Beacon Hills, home of the weird and unusual, has become even more weird and unusual in the past few days."

"How so?"

"Peter and Derek have been acting," Stiles flailed his hands, only to reiterate, "weird! And then today, when I was having lunch with Dad, _Parrish_ went all hot and bothered for no reason!"

Deaton stared at Stiles, who just nodded, frustrated once more. 

"Right, I know, _details_ , but there aren't really any. I just know something's _wrong_."

"Tell me about the 'weirdness.' Describe it to me."

"It's like… you know how sometimes you'll see a dog or a cat or something just stop what they're doing and go all stiff and alert? _That's_ what they're doing." Stiles nodded, watching Deaton eagerly. "They're like, in alert mode!"

"Mmm."

Stiles waited for something more, but then Deaton started gathering up the ingredients they'd prepared, his bearing that of a man who was finished with the conversation.

"Wait. That's it? 'Mmmm?' That's not… that's not an answer!"

Deaton finished what he was doing and turned to Stiles. "Mr. Stilinski, of all your fine qualities, the one most likely to interfere with your ability to be a truly effective emissary is your utter lack of patience. You've given me nothing to go on, and if you had, there are those of us in this world for whom words are a treasure. We prefer to consider them carefully versus using them in excess."

With that parting shot, Deaton turned off the light and exited the room.  


* * *

  
Stiles hit the roof of the jeep with the heel of his hand, letting out a loud yell of frustration. Jerking the wheel to the right instead of turning left out of Deaton's clinic parking lot, he hit the accelerator and just… drove. Long experience told him he needed this, needed to unwind a bit before going home, or he'd just stew in his own aggravation all night long, creating and _winning_ arguments with Deaton in the utopic atmosphere of his private thoughts. Blowing out a breath, he reached over to crank his radio up only to grab his phone instead when it started blaring Lydia's ringtone.

Glancing around, he made sure he was alone on this stretch of road before hitting the speaker button and forcing out a mostly normal, "Hello, beautiful!"

"Oh, Stiles," Lydia sighed down the line. "Deaton again? I thought you weren't due to see him for another two days?"

Stiles pulled a face, even knowing she couldn't see it. "Yeah, no. I had to go talk to him about something else."

There was a bit of a measured silence from Lydia before she asked, her voice sharp and alert, "What? You're supposed to call me if something happens back there. What's going on?"

"I would have," Stiles rushed to assure her, gentling his voice into tones of placation. "I promise. Right now, there's nothing to _tell_. It's just a feeling, an itch at the back of the brain. Derek and Peter are acting weird, and Parrish almost went Campfire Scout on us this afternoon. _While at work_."

"What did Deaton say?"

"Oh, well, you know Deaton. He stared at me for two solid minutes and then said, and I quote, 'Mmm.'"

"Well, that's… illuminating." 

Stiles could see her eyes roll clear as day in his mind's eye and just the image alone had him relaxing, a soft smile tilting his lips. "Right? I said something similar to him and he just lectured me about patience. How the hell am I supposed to be patient when something is going on and… Ugh. Only _nothing_ is going on. Not really."

" _Is_ it nothing?"

"As far as what we have to go on? Yeah, pretty much. Hence, my lack of phone calls to you. I promise, as soon as I know _anything_ , I'll let you know." Stiles glanced into the rearview mirror, looking to see if any traffic was behind him. The turnaround spot by the town welcome sign didn't have much a shoulder for people to go around him.

There was no traffic, not this time of day, but the only reason Stiles didn't miss the turnaround was because the old fallen oak tree was still there. The sign? Not so much.

"That's weird," he murmured.

"Hmm?" Lydia asked, her voice a bit faraway. She was probably already doing research based on the little information Stiles had given her.

"The Welcome to Beacon Hills sign. It's gone." Stiles squinted, slowing the jeep to a crawl as he cut his wheel toward spot where he _knew_ the sign should be. "It's like it was never here."

"What? What do you mean?"

"I mean, the posts are gone, the roadside completely undisturbed. It's just… gone." Stiles looked around some more, frowning into the darkness of the forest. Shaking the oddness off, Stiles completed his u turn and asked, "Hey, what'd you call for?"

"Oh." Lydia's voice went soft. "I'm not sure. I just felt the need to talk to you."

Stiles grinned. "Oh yeah? MIT too boring in the summer? You needed to talk to the Stiles?"

"Ugh. You do not get to refer to yourself in the third person when speaking to me. I _will_ hang up this phone." The sound of shuffling muffled Lydia's voice toward the end of that, prompting Stiles to laughingly object. 

"Noooo! Please, my queen. I'll do whatever you….want." 

Stiles slammed on his brakes, eyes trained on the view in his side mirror. 

"Stiles? _Stiles!_ What's wrong? What happened?"

"That old water tower. The one near the highway? It's gone too." The hairs on the back of Stiles' neck stood up, and he took a breath. "Lydia. Tell me something. Did you call just because you wanted to chat or did you feel… _compelled_ to call me?"

"I—" Lydia breathed down the line for a moment before her voice came through again, too calm. "I _needed_ to talk to you."

"Shit," Stiles whispered, unclenching his fingers from the wheel to rub his damp palms up and down his jeans, drying them off. "Well, this would explain all the people getting lost. Hey, Lydia?"

"I'm here."

"See what you can find about disappearing landmarks. I need to call dad. Maybe there was some sort of scheduled demolition of the water tower and this is all just…." He choked for a moment on thin air before breathing out, "Nothing."  



	2. Choices

* * *

  
Derek met him in the clinic parking lot, jerking open the jeep's door before Stiles could even turn the engine off. His seatbelt got caught between them as Derek grabbed the back of his neck, bringing their foreheads together as he breathed, his fingers tensing and relaxing.

Stiles breathed with him, knowing the threat had Derek's protective instincts in overdrive. "I'm okay," he finally said, staring into Derek's eyes from far too close. "I'm all right." He brought his hand up, stroking the backside of Derek's arm, feeling the muscles flex under his fingers. 

Blowing out a final breath through his nose, Derek leaned back, not far enough to jostle Stiles' hand on his arm, but far enough where they were no longer breathing each others' air. "What took you so long?" 

Though there'd been no hint of accusation in Derek's voice, Stiles found himself apologizing anyway. "Sorry, sorry. I should have told you. I was on the east side of town when I called you. After I talked to dad, I drove around to see if anything else was missing."

"And?" Derek's grip on the back of his neck firmed up again, a bit too tight this time. At Stiles' wince, Derek released him with a softly spoken apology. "Actually, just tell me inside. No reason to explain it all twice."

"Is the pack here?" Stiles asked, untangling himself from the seatbelt and sliding out of the jeep, only stumbling forward a step when his feet hit the ground since Derek was there to catch and right him.

"Scott, Erica, and Isaac. Boyd's on shift and Jackson didn't answer his phone," Derek said as Stiles slammed the door of his jeep shut and they started toward the clinic.

Stiles considered that. "Jackson was probably talking to Lydia. I was on the phone with her when I noticed the water tower and welcome sign were gone." 

Derek grunted and reached for the clinic door, stopping when Stiles put a firm hand on his arm. He turned his head, raising an eyebrow at Stiles.

"I don't know what this is. I don't know what's coming. But I do know that the pack will only be stronger with an emissary. Derek, man, if you're ever gonna trust me—" The soft skin of Derek's palm stopped Stiles' flow of words.

"It was never about trust," Derek murmured, his gaze clear and direct. " _Never._ I trust you with my life, with the lives of everyone I care about."

Stiles twisted his head until Derek dropped his hand. "Just not mine."

A conflicted look crossed Derek's face before he sighed. "You're _eighteen_."

"Old enough to vote. Old enough to go to war, get a tattoo, or get _married_. My age has nothing to do with this, Derek. I know, okay? I know you're scared I'm going to regret this eventually, but we'll never _get_ to eventually if we have a gaping hole in the pack structure. You need an emissary. I'm already pack, and I've been training for this since the first time I used mountain ash. Stop holding me at arms' length."

A low breath, holding the tiniest edge of a whine, left Derek at those words. "The alternative is…" Derek shuddered, something like heartbreak flashing through his eyes before he straightened. His posture _and_ his resolve, apparently. "As alpha, I accept your bid to become the Hale pack emissary." 

The weight of those words and the intensity of Derek's stare as he said them kept Stiles' feet firmly planted on the sidewalk long after Derek had passed through Deaton's door, the tinkling of the bell fading into silence.  


* * *

  
"Mr. Stilinski. A word, please?"

Stiles glanced over from where he was accepting Scott's half-worried, half-elated congratulations to see Deaton gesturing him into the hallway. Separating from Scott with a clap on the shoulder, Stiles followed Deaton down the narrow corridor to his inner office.

After shutting the door, Deaton turned to Stiles and offered him a bland smile. "I would also like to offer my congratulations."

"You don't _sound_ very congratulatory," Stiles said, narrowing his eyes and pointing at Deaton. "Please don't tell me you're unaware you've been training me to be an emissary all this time."

Deaton just stared at him, then blinked past that bit of teasing and tilted his head consideringly. "Derek has been… quite firm in his refusal to take on a pack emissary. I was not certain if his feelings in regard to the position were due to his dealings with the darach or if they were due to my own inability to keep his family safe."

"Deaton—" Stiles started to object to that again, only to fall silent when Deaton waved him off. 

"Now that he has agreed to your petition, I would like to give you a small warning." Only, instead of offering the warning, Deaton went around his desk and sat down, splaying his hands on the surface and pressing down for a long moment, his eyes slightly hazy and unfocused before he blinked whatever thoughts he was lost in away and focused again on Stiles. "I like to believe I am a somewhat adequate judge of character. You have never been one to blindly accept … anything, really. Limitations, fate, closed signs, a firm and resounding 'no'..."

Stiles held his hands up, sitting forward in the chair he occupied. "Hey. I resent that. Consent is sexy."

"Mmmm." Deaton raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Regardless, I would like you to seriously consider the limitations placed upon a fully integrated pack emissary. As you are aware, it is impossible for an emissary to intentionally bring harm to a member of their pack."

Stiles rested his elbows on his knees, nodding for Deaton to elaborate. 

"No matter the reason. If a member of the pack were to go feral, the emissary could do no harm. If a pack member were to awake from a coma and kill another member of the pack for the alpha power…" Deaton paused there, letting his words sink in.

Blowing out a breath, Stiles dipped his chin. "I know I blamed you for not helping us with that, and I'm sorry. At first, I thought _you_ were the alpha, and then I thought you were working with the alpha and… But you have to know I understand now. I know you weren't intentionally helping Peter."

"I simply could _not_ work against him. In much the same way that you would be prevented from working against a feral Scott. Or Derek. Any of the present pack, any future pack members. Your status as emissary would prevent you from bringing harm to the pack and the thing I need you to consider is if… that is something you can handle. One day Derek may be challenged for his position from within the pack. As emissary, you cannot influence the outcome, much as you may wish to."

Deaton watched Stiles with a kind of pity as he slumped back into his seat, a crushing weight pressing against his chest. 

Yeah, he hadn't really looked at it _that_ way.

"You have two weeks until everything will be prepared to bond you as emissary. I encourage you to think about what I've said before you accept your pack mark."  


* * *

  
Two weeks was at once not enough time to prepare for such an intricate ceremony while also taking far too long, as every day they awoke to new reports of disappearing landmarks. It was as if whatever was causing them to blink from existence was working in a pattern leading them to the center of the territory. For once, Stiles was relegated to the sidelines of the monster hunt as he was too busy preparing to become the Hale pack emissary.

Stiles' eyes flared wide at the notes scribbled in the margins of the — remarkably current and in clear English — text they were poring over the night before the ceremony. "'Mingle your essences'? Holy shit, does that mean—?"

Derek crooked an eyebrow at him before shifting his gaze between Deaton and Stiles. "What?"

"Jizz," Stiles breathed. "It means we have to jizz into a pewter bowl or something."

Deaton didn't even bother sighing; apparently he had become inured to Stiles' _Stilesness_ over the years. Instead, he folded his arms over his chest and pinned Stiles with a bland look. "Blood would be better than ejaculate, honestly. In fact, I have the perfect knife for blood-letting. It's quite ceremonial. As long as my forearm, but unfortunately very dull because its value is too precious to waste even the tiny amount that would be lost to sharpening, so you really have to dig into the flesh. Saw at it, even. I'll just go fetch it, shall I?"

"Umm." Stiles let out a strangled cough and sidled up to Derek before stepping quickly behind him, using him as a human shield. Peeking around Derek's shoulder, he said, "Is there a third option? I'm really liking a third option here."

"Hair," Derek muttered, flipping a page in the journal he'd been reading. 

Stiles could _feel_ his eye roll.

"Ah yes. Not quite so romantic as semen, but slightly less messy than blood." Deaton's mouth quirked at the corner and Stiles huffed.

"Yeah, okay, make fun. It's not my fault I usually only have Google to work with. There are a _lot_ of references to jizz with regard to werewolves on the internet."

"At this point, you should know to remove the fanfiction archives from your search string," Derek said dryly.

"Har har," Stiles muttered. Then he looked up at a sound from the door only to see Lydia standing there, looking a bit jet-lagged. Which would make sense, considering he'd spoken to her on Skype that morning while she'd been firmly in her apartment in Boston.

"Are you at a stopping point?" she asked, walking briskly into the room with an air of one for whom the only acceptable answer would be _yes._

"We have everything we need for tomorrow evening," Deaton replied, gesturing to a chair which Lydia refused with a toss of her head.

"Good. I know what we're working against. Or rather, I know as much as anyone does and I've used that knowledge to create a few theories of my own."

Stiles used the chair Deaton had offered to cover for the fact that his knees had just gone a bit weak with relief. "You figured it out? What is it? How do we kill it?"

Lydia rummaged in her purse before pulling out an iPad and offering it to Stiles. "There's no known name as they've only appeared twice before in recorded history. The entity finds a weakness, for lack of a better term, in our dimension and comes in to basically delete us. It only erases those things that are human in origin. Buildings, signs, man-made landmarks."

"Like the old elementary school on Maple," Stiles murmured, looking at a graphic Lydia — or someone — had created showing the progression of 'deleted' places. "Good thing it got shut down in 2015."

"Exactly. No one knows why it leaves some roads and erases others, but I believe it has to do with old animal trails. If the road followed an animal trail, they'd leave it." Lydia shrugged. "For now, at least."

"So how do we defeat them?" Derek asked, his voice close to Stiles' ear, making him jump a little.

"This is pure conjecture on my part, but each of the recorded places they tried to delete in the past were near merging ley lines. And where ley lines merge—"

"Nemetons," Deaton said, nodding like this all made sense to him. "You think the nemetons in those areas were in some way damaged or unhealthy."

"Or turned _on_ ," Stiles whispered, his stomach filling with knots.

Deaton waved that off. "Generally speaking, nemetons _stay_ in a state of being 'on.' They are a focal point for the energies in an area. It is only when they are damaged or unhealthy that the community must work to disengage them from the energy flow, as they can taint the energy."

"Turning those places into a Beacon Hills-esque nightmare."

Lydia nodded at Stiles. "Exactly. So the way to defeat them is to heal the Nemeton. The Nemeton, I believe, is an ancient defense against these beings."

"Do we know _why_ they're… deleting humanity?" Derek asked.

"That's also unknown, but it's implied that they prepare our dimension for something else."

"Like the Silver Surfer," Stiles said, pulling out his phone and sending off a quick text to his dad. "Okay, so right now, our best bet is to… what? Get everyone out of town? To the center of town? Are these entities even corporeal?"

"There were sightings both times previous. They appear to be humanoid in shape in the etchings I found." Lydia stepped forward and tapped the screen on the iPad, pulling up a fuzzy picture of an ancient drawing of something… yeah. Vaguely humanoid.

"Well, that suggests we can actually fight them. But fighting them won't help if we can't _heal_ the Nemeton." Derek dropped a hand to Stiles' shoulder, not squeezing, just resting it there. Like he needed a touchstone to the pack.

Stiles reached up and wrapped his fingers around Derek's hand, holding tightly to it, giving Derek the grounding he seemed to crave. Not letting go, he nibbled on his lip for a moment before nodding and turning his head to look at Lydia. 

"Okay, so you, me, and Deaton will try to find anything we can on healing our Nemeton. Derek," he squeezed Derek's hand for emphasis, "you call our allies. Start with the Ito pack and Chris. See if they have information that might help us. I’ll let my dad know what little we have so far. I trust him to evacuate the civilians, but I think we need all hands on deck for this one, and I want the pack to move to…" He ran through possible locations in his head before wrinkling his nose and tipping his head back until he could make eye-contact with Derek, upside down though it was. "You okay with us camping out at your old house? It's the closest to the middle of the territory, and I don't want to wake up tomorrow to find out that we've lost _people_ because they were too far out."

"That's fine. I'll text the pack. Make sure Melissa knows too. The hospital is still a few miles from where the latest disappearances were, but I don't want to take chances."

Stiles nodded, letting go of Derek to send a quick text telling Melissa to cash in some personal time and pack a bag. 

"When you're done with that," Derek said, scritching his fingers through the too-long hair at the back of Stiles' head, "I think we need to go back to yours and find the clippers you used to use. We still need that hair for tomorrow night."  


* * *

  
"Hey, are we okay?" Stiles asked, meeting Derek's eyes in the mirror above the sink he was bent over.

Derek, clippers in hand, just looked back at him, eyebrows pinched in question.

"Look, I know I'm forcing the issue, and while I'm not sorry..." Stiles shrugged, nearly upsetting the towel draped over his shoulders to catch the hair. "I just need to know that you're really okay with this whole emissary thing."

Derek opened his mouth, closed it with a small frown, and turned the clippers on, making a slow pass down the middle of Stiles' head. When he neared the nape of Stiles' neck, he finished the line and then turned the clippers off again, scooping up the hair and depositing it into a sandwich bag. 

"It's not you. It was never you. I know you think this is about me not trusting you, but—" Derek's eyes met Stiles' in the mirror, and then the somber look on his face dissolved into soft lines of humor. "You look ridiculous. I can't talk to you like this. Hang on." 

Stiles chuckled, dropping his head and relaxing into the feeling of Derek's free hand running through his remaining hair, lifting it gently as he passed the clippers over each section. When the longer hair was gone and all that remained was cleaning up little spots, his hand dropped to Stiles' shoulder, holding Stiles tightly against his chest to still any movements that might mess up the haircut.

When Derek turned the clippers off again, he set them aside and stroked his fingers lightly over the close-cropped buzz cut. "This reminds me of when we first met." Shaking himself, he gently lifted the towel from Stiles' shoulders, putting more hair into the baggie before shaking the towel over the small trash can. Keeping his head tilted away, he continued flapping the towel long after the hair was gone as he said, "I was so broken then, a beta with no alpha, in danger of becoming omega. But you…" 

Stiles stepped closer, stopping Derek's motions. "Hey."

"You've given us so much already. I wouldn't have this pack if it weren't for you being so damn foolishly stubborn. I just…" Derek broke off with a helpless, _guilty_ look.

"This isn't going to devolve into you questioning my ability to make my own choices, is it?" Stiles felt ready to gnash his teeth at the thought.

"No. I know you can make your own choices. I do. And I respect that." At Stiles' narrow-eyed look, Derek rolled his eyes. "Okay, I'm _trying very hard_ to respect that. I just can't help feeling responsible for you. I _need_ to protect you. Sometimes, that alpha instinct gets too loud and I—" He broke off with an uncomfortable shrug. "I can't let anything happen to you. You're…"

"My choice, Derek. Mine. It's your choice to accept me or not, but the choice to give myself to the pack? Is mine. No matter what. I am a big boy. I can accept whatever consequences arise from this decision, but you have to understand that this part is my choice to make."

"I just don't want you to regret it."

"There are a lot of things I regret. The pack? Has never been, and will never be, one of them."

They stared at each other for a long time, Derek obviously trying to weigh the truth of Stiles' emotions and Stiles just enjoying the opportunity to look at Derek's pretty damn eyes this close up.

"Okay, then," Derek said. "Close your eyes." His lips puckered up, sending Stiles' heart into overdrive.

Stiles found himself complying without hesitation, his own lips pursed to finally accept the press of Derek's against them. But instead of a kiss, he heard Derek take a deep breath before a stream of cool breath rushed over his skin. When he opened his eyes again, Derek was looking back, his face a bit slack and lips slightly parted. 

"Sorry. You had… hair."

Stiles scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck, grimacing in confused embarrassment that he could only hope to barrel past with a flood of words. "Yeah, haircuts, haha. Pain in the ass, right? I should take a shower and get the last little bits off before I start itching like crazy."

A hint of red bloomed across the bridge of Derek's nose. "Oh, right. I'll… just go."

Stiles lifted his eyebrows, wondering for a split second why Derek seemed reluctant. Then he realized Derek probably expected help in return, and he reached for the clippers. "Wait! I can get you—"

"No! It just needs to be hair. I'll dump out my beard trimmer or something."

"Oh, wow," Stiles intoned, voice dry as dust, lingering embarrassment washing away in the face of Derek's utterly boring practicality. "That's so special, Derek. So meaningful. You are the most Super Romantic and Magical™ Alpha ever. I'm so lucky!" he shouted after Derek as he rolled his eyes and walked out, slamming the bathroom door behind him.  


* * *

  
Stiles side-eyed the Nemeton as the pack stood gathered in the clearing surrounding it, his dad and Melissa looking on from the tree line. "This isn't nerve wracking at all," he whispered out of the side of his mouth to Derek, who ducked his head to hide a grin.

Still hiding that sense of humor, even after three years of being around Stiles' awesomeness. It was enough to make a guy wither away in despair.

The wind picked up then, blowing chilly over the back of Stiles' head and making him instinctively run a hand over it, marvelling again at the odd feeling of stubble where only hours before it'd been long enough to sink his fingers into. And speaking of stubble… Stiles chanced another look at Derek, who was clean shaven for the first time since becoming alpha.

That fucking jawline was sharp enough to cut himself on, Stiles thought with a sigh before being forcibly reminded of the reason they were there when Deaton cleared his throat.

"We are gathered together in the presence of the moon," he began, his tone clear and carrying. His short speech about the importance of an emissary to the pack washed over Stiles. 

He knew exactly what Deaton was saying because he'd read the script a thousand times in the past two weeks, but now that the moment he'd been pushing for was here, his nerves were getting the better of him. It wasn't until a hand slipped into his own that Stiles was jolted back to the present. He glanced over at Derek again to see him staring back, his pale eyes reflecting the light of the nearly full moon. There was a question in them that Stiles just rolled his eyes at.

"Relax," he murmured, lower than a whisper so as not to distract Deaton. "I'm fine. Just nervous for this to not get interrupted by Norrin Radd."

Derek waited until Deaton turned to gather up some herbs to cast into the small fire he'd started — in the Stilinski's barbeque pit because no one wanted to face Derek if they accidentally started a wildfire in the Preserve — to whisper into Stiles' ear, "I feel like it's more the Nothing from The Neverending Story than the Silver Surfer."

Stiles' breath caught, both at the slightest graze of Derek's lips over the shell of his ear _as well as_ Derek's pop culture reference. "I'm gonna emissary you _so hard_ ," he breathed, beginning to bounce on the balls of his feet until the moment Deaton called him and Derek to step forward and throw their hair into the fire. 

Their _essence_ , mixing together into ash.

The rustling of underbrush dragged his attention to where his dad was standing, having apparently moved a bit closer to Melissa to offer her his uniform jacket. He swallowed then, a bit heavily. 

It was probably a good thing they'd gone with hair as the magical ingredient instead of jizz, honestly.

"Derek Hale, alpha, do you accept Mieczysław Stilinski—" 

Stiles groaned at the quickly-stifled chuckles that broke out among the majority of the pack at hearing his legal name for the first time. 

"—as your emissary, to protect your pack with every gift at his disposal, to include his own life if necessary?"

"I do," Derek replied, dumping his beard trimmer into the fire and then grimacing at the smell of burning hair.

Stiles had to hold himself back from reaching for Derek, who was too far away for the movement to be anything but obvious to all in the clearing.

"Do you, Mieczysław Stilinski, agree to give everything of yourself in support of the Hale pack, to include your own life if necessary?"

"Oh yeah," Stiles said, nodding as he stepped forward. He held the bowl he'd made for his mom in preschool in both hands, shaking it enough to dump the hair out as he added, remembering the ceremony was meant to be a formal bonding of alpha and emissary, "I do."

Derek stepped up to Stiles, placing his hand firmly against Stiles' throat. "In the light of Mother Moon, in the presence of my pack, I accept you, Mieczysław Stilinski, to be the Hale pack emissary. I offer my strength and protection to assure your safety and ask only that you devote yourself loyally to the pack."

Stiles swallowed, his throat nearly burning under the unnatural heat of Derek's palm. "I, Mieczysław Stilinski, accept you, Derek Hale, as my alpha. I pledge to devote all of myself and my gifts in support of the Hale pack, to include my very life if necessary."

As if it had been timed perfectly with their vows to one another, Deaton doused the flames of the fire at the same time that a cloud fully blocked the moon, casting the faintly-lit clearing into almost complete darkness.

There was a hesitant clap from somewhere to Stiles' right just before he heard Erica call out, "You may kiss the bride, I guess?"

And then it all just devolved into good-natured chaos behind them as Derek pulled Stiles in closer, resting their foreheads together in a way that had become far too natural. As Derek dropped his hand and stepped back, his eyes flickered to Stiles' throat and he pulled in a quick breath, his eyes widening. 

"What?" Stiles asked, his hand automatically flying to his throat to touch the too-cool skin there. "What is it?"

The shine of a utility flashlight lit up the ground at his feet, signalling his dad's arrival at Derek's side. "Well, son, looks like it took. Good job."

"Seriously," Stiles whined. "What?"

Deaton appeared nearly-silently at his side, startling Stiles. "Did I fail to mention you'd be marked as pack?"

"I mean, you did. I just kind of assumed it was metaphorical." Stiles rubbed at his neck, wishing for a mirror. "What does it look like?"

"It's a triskele, the symbol of the Hale pack. It is nearly identical to the mark I once carried." Deaton tilted his head, studying it. "Of course, most emissary marks present in less… obvious locations, but I should have expected you to wear yours for the world to see."

"Yeah? Where was yours?" Stiles' touch grew lighter as wonder filled him. A triskele. A hint of smugness filled him at the knowledge that he could carry the symbol of the pack without having to sit through hours of torture at a tattoo parlor.

Derek must have understood what Stiles was trying to do, because he gently pushed Stiles' hand aside and traced the lines of the mark on Stiles' neck. 

"Hmm? Oh, mine was on the bottom of my foot."

Derek's fingers went still on Stiles' neck as they both turned to stare at Deaton with twin expressions of horror. 

"That," Stiles whispered softly, "explains so much."  


* * *

  
Stiles opened the front door of his house, smiling nervously at the two women who stood on the other side. "Alpha Ito, Mrs. Yukimura. Thanks for coming. Please, come in."

Satomi's smile was a bit tight and guarded, but Stiles had the feeling that was more to do with being in another alpha's territory than anything. Mrs. Yukimura's expression, on the other hand, was as warm as Stiles had ever seen.

"Call me Noshiko; I've been answering to that much longer than my married name."

Stiles nodded and waved his arm, showing the ladies into the living room where a war council of sorts was preparing to convene. Around the room were Melissa McCall, Chris and Allison Argent, Alan Deaton, Deputy Parrish, Stiles' dad, Derek and Lydia and now the two ladies who'd been the last to arrive. Stiles went to take the spot on Derek's left, leaving the last two chairs for Noshiko and Alpha Ito.

Before Lydia could start the meeting, Satomi Ito turned to Derek and gave a nod of acknowledgement. Her eyes flicked between them before landing on Stiles' mark. "You've chosen an emissary, then." 

Derek's shoulders drew up and back a little, like he was making himself as big as possible. Alpha Ito just raised an eyebrow at him until he deflated again, making Stiles hide a smile behind his hand. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good," she grunted, then turned toward where Lydia was standing, her iPad hooked up to the Stilinski's television.

"Thank you for coming on such short notice," Lydia began, glancing around the room. "I sent you all emails with the pertinent information that we've been able to gather about the latest threat. Sheriff Stilinski has managed to evacuate the town before any human casualties were reported, for which we are grateful."

"How _did_ you manage that?" Chris asked, leaning forward to look at John.

"Tell you later," John answered quietly, nodding for Lydia to continue.

Stiles, of course, knew he wouldn't mention anything until after confirming with Deaton and himself that the amount of magic thrown around the town to get everyone to feel uneasy enough to leave wouldn't bring hunters down on their heads.

Lydia talked for a few moments about the interdimensional beings before turning to look at Noshiko. "Mrs. Yukimura, is it possible that you've heard of this before? Possibly had personal experience with them?"

Noshiko's forehead wrinkled as she looked at the etching of the beings that was featured prominently on the television screen. "It's like the Wild Hunt, but opposite," she murmured, cupping her chin with her hand. "The Riders of the Hunt take people, leaving whole towns of empty buildings behind. This? It's only taking the _objects_ , which doesn't make sense. Buildings, signs, water towers. Why no people?"

Deaton sat forward, drawing the room's attention. "I have a theory about that. They don't have a good ability to discern human from animal, so they first go after what they can identify. Buildings, _things_ that are outside of nature. For all that humans have created those things, humans themselves are natural in origin."

Noshiko nodded, her eyes clearing. "But you're sure they will eventually take _people_."

Lydia nodded. "There is record of them doing so in the past, before they were able to be stopped." Lydia waved a hand at Jordan Parrish, who had his own raised in question. "Yes?"

"Do you know how they were stopped in the past?"

"We do, yes. But we're going to need your help, all of you, to distract the beings long enough for us to do it." Lydia went through her plan to heal the Nemeton, giving each person present at the meeting instructions for where to go and what to do.

Alpha Ito thumped the arm of her chair. "If this doesn't work? If you cannot heal the Nemeton in time? What then?"

"Then…" Stiles drew a breath, looking around the room. "We face the consequences."

"If I take my pack and leave, what chance do we have?" she asked, not bothering to look even a little bit ashamed for threatening to leave them to their fate.

"You'll live longer," Derek said. "Your pack will survive longer than mine. But make no mistake. If we fail to heal the Nemeton and restart its protection, this entire dimension is open to these beings and they _will_ eventually get to everything else."

"We could find a new nemeton, let it protect us."

"You could," Melissa said, speaking for the first time all evening. "But it sounds like these things, when they get their foot in the door? Hold it open for something worse. I, personally, don't want to see what worse looks like. Lydia, how can I help?"

Satomi pursed her lips, her eyes narrowed on Melissa before she nodded once and sat back, interlaced fingers resting over her midsection as she listened to Lydia. 

Stiles tried not to be too obvious in his relief when Satomi argued against the placement of her pack, insisting that they be closer to the Hale pack to aid in the coming fight.  


* * *

  
"Remind me again why we're down here in this creepy-ass root cellar that I had hoped never to have to enter again?" Stiles muttered, trying to calm his breathing … and his heart rate.

"Because it's the full moon, the pack and our allies are at their strongest, and based on my calculations," Lydia said, throwing him a pointed look, "the interdimensional beings will be appearing here tonight."

"Have I mentioned how much I _dislike_ that kind of coincidence? They reach the Nemeton, the thing we're currently sitting _under_ , by the way, on the night of the full moon?"

"The timing does work in our favor," Deaton said, offering a cup to Stiles. "Drink this. It will help open you to the energies of the Nemeton."

Stiles took it and swallowed, well beyond arguing with Deaton over his frankly-disgusting concoctions. Especially since Stiles had helped make it. "I know what it does," he muttered, wiping his mouth and trying not to gag.

"I thought it might settle your nerves to remind you."

Stiles grimaced at the roots that lined the walls. "Yeah, no. Not really." He tried very hard to forget how the ceiling had nearly collapsed the last time he'd been here, but every time he thought he was succeeding, his eyes would land on the bat in the corner that he'd used to hold up the roof. 

"Stiles," Deaton called, and that only added to the feeling of panic. He _never_ called Stiles by his first name, always choosing to use 'Mr. Stilinski.' "It is vitally important that you remember your place in the pack. You are the emissary. _This_ is your fight. Everything that happens outside of this is for your pack to handle. They cannot do this for you, just as you cannot do that for them. If you abandon your duties, we are all lost."

"Yeah," Stiles wheezed. "No pressure. And… I got it. I know. I'm here, I promise. I won't run off half-cocked."

In another startlingly uncharacteristic display, it was _Lydia_ who smothered a giggle when he said 'half-cocked.' 

Jesus, the world really was ending.

Stiles clenched his hands into fists to stop their trembling. "Ugh. Okay, give me the Miracle-Gro stuff. I need to get started painting the roots if we're going to get this done tonight." 

"It's not—"

"Miracle-Gro, I know. You've told me already, but that's what my brain is stuck on, so just give me the juice and the paintbrush."

Stiles moved around Lydia, applying the potion he'd brewed to every exposed root he could find as she recalculated positions based on real time information from the allies they had stationed around the territory and the pack just above them in the same clearing where, six days ago, Stiles had become the official pack emissary.

"Hurry, Stiles," Lydia muttered around a pencil held between her teeth. "They'll be here soon."

"Moving as fast as I—hnngh!" Stiles dropped to his knees, a blinding pain nearly crushing his head. 

For a second, he thought the cellar had caved in — again — but when he was able to blink his eyes open, he saw Lydia kneeling over him, smacking him lightly on the cheek. "Stiles! Are you okay? You—"

"I have to go," he said, the words spilling from him without thought. "I have to go… up." 

"What? Stiles—"

Stiles ignored her, sitting up, _standing_ up, and pushing past her, no longer listening to the world around him. No, the voice inside him was too loud, too compelling, and it was telling him to go _up._ In his mind's eye, he could see it, see where he should be, so he climbed, up and up and up until he blinked down and saw that he was standing in the middle of the Nemeton's trunk.

"Okay," he said, somewhat shakily. "I hear you, old girl. I do. What next?"

But, of course, the Nemeton chose that moment to go silent. As silent as the forest around it. 

It took Stiles a moment to realize that the silence was coming from himself. Even with his eyes wide open, the images he saw weren't real. Or, rather, they weren't from _his_ reality. He saw hooded figures surrounding the huge bulk of a tree split down the center; a pack of some sort of shifting creature fighting around three girls who stood at the base of a rotted tree; something else, another reality probably, where there was another fight. All these nemetons, all these people fighting, and in each reality, he saw the same thing.

Images swamped him of the interdimensional beings arriving, joining the fight, and those that fought back just… blinking out of existence. One touch, apparently, was all it took to remove them from this dimension. 

Chills swept Stiles as he watched the same thing, over and over, the images fed directly into his mind from the Nemeton pulsing weakly under his feet, the last of its positive energies being used to help him _see_.

And then the cascade of images stopped, the forest seeming to sigh. The Preserve was never this still, not unless something _bad_ was coming, and when it did, he was almost too late. _They_ were there, sliding through the trees, leaving nothing unnatural in their wake. 

They were so weird looking that it took Stiles a moment to reconnect with reality. They looked like something the guy with the poofy hair on _Ancient Aliens_ would have come up with: they were nearly glowing white, stretched too thin, their long fingers trailing over everything and their faces — or what should have been their faces — were blank. No eyes, no mouth, no noses. It was freaky as shit.

The pack, who'd been prepared for their arrival, started to engage the beings. But it was wrong. It was all wrong. They didn't know they weren't going to survive this.

"Don't let them touch you!" he screamed, entire body shaking with fear for his pack, and in that moment he almost abandoned his post. He almost rushed right off the Nemeton, the need that had been driving him since that night Peter had bit Scott in the Preserve propelling him to help his pack. To save them. 

But then the Nemeton spoke again, directly into his soul, showing him the way to protect them all and he nodded, agreeing with everything it told him.

Reaching into his pocket, Stiles grabbed the small knife he had taken to carrying and unfolded it, running its sharp blade down the outsides of his forearms. "Don't wanna cut an artery and bleed out _before_ I'm done," he muttered to himself, half-hysterical. As the blood began to flow down over the backs of his hands, Stiles threw the knife to the ground, away from the Nemeton, and walked the perimeter of the stump, sprinkling his blood into the tree and the soil around it. 

For a moment, he was outside of himself, watching the blood pour hot and steady down the backs of his hands, slide thick and soupy down his fingers where it clung before dripping free. He'd been to a Catholic church once — just once, because after watching him bounce all over the place, his friend's family had never invited him back — and this reminded him of that. The way the priest had sprinkled everyone with holy water, had bestowed a blessing on the congregation. This was Stiles' blessing: on the pack, on the Nemeton, on their entire dimension. And sure, it wasn't holy water, but it was more than that. It was his very life's blood.

He was chanting, murmuring, and he had _no idea_ what the words were that were coming out of his mouth, but as he spoke them, he could hear the things in the forest begin to scream. It was an angry sound, like a predator being denied its prey, and Stiles could only smile grimly as his blood began rush from him, faster and faster as his chanting picked up in cadence, the dark liquid pooling at his feet. 

Magic or the Nemeton or the very earth itself pulsed within him, making him feel too full, too big, and with one last incantation, everything went perfectly, clearly still. Stiles blinked then, his vision a bit spotty, and as his eyelids closed, everything… shattered.

The explosion of power knocked the pack off their feet, closed the rift he could now clearly see — inside his mind, and even as woozy as he was, he could still appreciate the freakiness of _that_. Stiles stared at one of the beings as it began to disintegrate, laughing as he slapped weakly at his own arms, making the now-sluggishly flowing blood spurt a bit faster. "My very life if necessary, asshole. I _am_ the emissary." Stiles was still laughing when the fuzziness of the world consolidated into pure darkness.  



	3. Consequences

  


* * *

  
Waking up was a shock, to say the least. Waking up in a dimly-lit hospital room, with nothing but beeping monitors around him, was even more shocking. Where was his dad? Where was Derek, or Scott, or … Melissa?

Was this even Beacon Hills Hospital? Or was it somewhere else? Was it… 

The beeping he could hear picked up, going a bit nuts, and he wanted to scream at it to shut up, but he couldn't because he couldn't catch breath enough to do so. It wasn't until he felt firm hands on his shoulders that he realized he was having a panic attack and then, it got worse when the face of the nurse trying to talk to him was one that was entirely unfamiliar to him.

He had to calm down, he _knew_ he had to calm down, but doing so was almost impossible. The nurse called his name, over and over, her voice as firm as her grip, and Stiles used the repetitive movement of her mouth to steady himself, to time his breaths. In… and out.

Eventually, he was able to breathe slowly enough to convince his nurse to back away, give him a little space to recover. 

"What...happened?" he asked, his voice a hoarse croak of sound. He rubbed his hands up and down his unbandaged arms, feeling for the cuts he remembered making but finding nothing but unmarked skin. 

That explained why he wasn't handcuffed to the bed under constant surveillance on the psych ward, anyway. Of course, it raised about five million _more_ questions, most important of which was _could he still be an emissary if he was a beta werewolf?_

He pushed that down, ignored it for now. He'd already had one panic attack; he'd just have to schedule that one for a different time, like putting off a Windows update on his laptop. For now, he had to find his pack. He had to find out if it had _worked_. 

"You were brought in to us after you collapsed from acute exhaustion," the nurse explained, frowning at him softly, reprovingly, the expression too motherly to do anything but make him uncomfortable.

"How are you feeling?" she asked after a long moment of awkward silence, grimacing in sympathy when he shot her an incredulous look. "Sorry, but I have to ask. Do you know today's date?"

"Uh, July sixth."

"It's actually the eighth, almost the ninth, but since you were admitted on the sixth, that's forgivable. It's," she checked her watch, "ten fifty-seven." Her eyes darted to the window, out of which even he could see the waning moon. "At night, obviously. Your father had to go in to work, but he'll be back before morning if you want to get some more sleep."

"Where's everyone else?" he asked, his voice more cracked than ever as he considered who might be missing from that list.

"Hmm? Oh, your friends had to go home when visiting hours ended."

"And Melissa McCall?"

The nurse smiled at the name before frowning in thought. "She's on vacation, I think? I know she was here earlier, but since she's not on shift, she had to go home with the rest of your visitors."

Stiles nodded, forcing a smile onto his lips. "Okay, thanks. I'm tired. Sleeping for two days apparently takes it out of me. Think I'll catch another nap."

She smiled, eyes skimming the room, landing on a few of the machines as she nodded. "Rest really is the best thing for you at the moment. I'll inform the doctor that you woke up, and she may wake you for a quick examination, but go ahead and sleep for now."

Stiles closed his eyes to slits, watching as she bustled around quietly, wrote something on his chart, and then left, closing the door behind her. Moving as quickly as possible, he pushed his blankets back and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Turning on the light above the bed, he looked around, scanning the room until he saw a bag with what looked like his clothes in a darkened corner. Of course, when he tried to stand up, he yelped, and looked down at the bottom half of his body. 

Lifting the hospital gown slowly, he stared in horror at the catheter taped to his inner thigh. "Oh fuck," he moaned softly to himself, then steeled his resolve and peeled the tape away from the tube that disappeared into the tip of his dick. "I almost sacrificed myself for the pack. This is nothing," he said lightly, trying to convince himself. 

And then, because he was a big old baby, he closed his eyes before he started gently tugging the catheter tube. The sensation of it coming out of him was… indescribable. He whimpered pitifully the whole time, tossing the whole, too-long tube away from him when it was finally clear of his body. 

With renewed determination, he stood up, clutching onto his IV pole as he hobbled across the room to his clothes. "Not talking about that. Ever. We are never, ever talking about that. To anyone. That didn't happen."

Rifling through the bag that held his belongings, he whined softly at seeing that his phone was there, but dead. And, of course, no charger. Oh well. He pulled his jeans and underwear on first, ignoring the places where his _blood_ had stained the material and shoving his phone into his pocket. Then he put his head and one arm into the t-shirt, waiting until the very last moment to gently pull out the IV needle, tug the oxygen monitor off his finger, and undo the velcro of the blood pressure cuff. 

Having told his nurse he was going back to sleep, he expected it would take her a few minutes to react to the oxygen alarms, assuming he'd simply dislodged it in his sleep. He might even have until the next time the machine tried to automatically take his blood pressure, but he wasn't taking chances. Sliding his feet into his shoes, he shuffled as fast as possible to the door and then cracked it open, peering into the hallway before ducking out at seeing no one there. 

He walked down the hallway as normally as he could, knowing that it would be weird motions that would draw attention. Nothing too fast, nothing too slow. No jerking or flailing or falling over because he _forgot to put pressure on his arm where the needle had been in him._ Stiles nearly smacked himself when he realized he had a thin stream of blood running down his arm, and then he had to swallow roughly when that reminded him of why he was _in_ the hospital in the first place.

He didn't want to wait for the elevator, but he thought trying the stairs at the moment might not end up going too well for him. So he waited, only checking over his shoulders every so often. It wasn't until he was past the registration desk and out in the dark night air that Stiles really let himself _breathe_. 

And then he nearly sobbed in relief because, sitting right there under one of the parking lot lights, was his beloved jeep. He would have danced across the parking lot if his dick weren't still twinging in, likely psychosomatic, pain. As it was, his steps sped up and he was there, leaning over and retrieving his spare key from the hidden compartment in the rear wheel well. Jumping in the driver's seat, he cranked the engine, tossed his useless phone onto the passenger seat, turned up the radio, and thought for a moment.

He wanted to see the pack, but it was the middle of the night. The signs all around told him he was at Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital, but what if the person he wanted to see was… gone? 

No, no, no. No, he couldn't think about that. That would just send him into a screaming pit of despair, so… Stiles nodded to himself and pointed the jeep toward the edge of town.

He had to see. He had to _know_. And it would be way easier to have a complete mental breakdown at the edge of town than at, say, the Reyes' house.

As he neared the very edge of the territory, Stiles slowed to a halt, pure, crushing joy filling him when his lights flashed over the Welcome to Beacon Hills sign a few hundred feet ahead, right where it was supposed to be. Pulling over into the grass at the roadside, he stumbled from the jeep, choking on his own relief, and walked toward it, wanting to get his hands on it only to… stop. Right there in the middle of the road. Something… something was preventing him from getting to the sign.

He pushed forward, _leaned_ into it, but it was like there was a forcefield holding him back. Panic rising, he pushed again, and again. 

He was on his knees, screaming incoherently and pounding against thin air when he heard someone call his name. Turning, he saw Derek standing there, his eyes wide and hands outstretched, like he wanted to save Stiles but didn't know what he was saving him _from._

"Derek?" he asked, his voice weak and shaky as he held his hands out toward his alpha. "What… Did you—? Did you bite me? Is that why I can't—?"

"No." Derek rushed forward, crossing easily over the invisible line that Stiles couldn't cross to kneel in front of Stiles, his concerned face taking up Stiles' entire field of vision. "No, I didn't. I promise I didn't. I would have." Derek took hold of one of Stiles' hands and used his other hand to run his fingers gently over the place where Stiles had dug his knife deep. "There was so much blood, but by the time we got to you…." He raised his eyes and looked at Stiles, shrugging.

"I was already healed." It took a moment, but Stiles nodded. A few deep breaths helped to clear his head, helped to let him see the hint of hurt that hid in the curl of Derek's eyebrows. "It would have been okay," he whispered. "If you had to bite me? It would have been okay, I promise. Definitely not the end of the world. So don't…" Stiles reached up with the hand not trapped by Derek's and smoothed his thumb over Derek's forehead. "Don't look like that."

"Then why are you screaming in the middle of the road?" Derek asked, leaning a little into Stiles' touch. "And why did it feel like someone was _pounding_ on the territory lines? Was that you?"

Stiles let out a shaky breath and pushed forward with his hand until Derek was on one side of the forcefield and Stiles on the other. And then he gritted his teeth and _pushed_ as hard as he could, pushed like he was trying to move the jeep with the parking brake on. But pushing accomplished nothing more than causing Derek's eyes to go wide and show a hint of Stiles' panic in the way they flickered a luminous red.

"What is it?"

"I don't know." Stiles dropped his hands to his lap, rolling his lips under and biting them together so he didn't let out all the fear that was building inside him. "But I thought maybe there was a line of mountain ash here or something. That's why—"

"That's why you thought I bit you."

"Well, that and the ridiculous healing. Okay, think. I can't get to you, not here, so…" So Stiles did what any sensible, experiment-driven rational being would do and stepped to the side in an attempt to try moving forward again. Still no luck.

Thirty minutes later saw the two of them firmly inside the forest, the road so far behind them that Stiles couldn't even hear the occasional vehicle passing anymore as he pushed and prodded at the energy that kept him separated from Derek.

The sound of footsteps should have come as a surprise, but somehow, Stiles had been expecting them. Expecting _him._ "How'd you know where to find us?"

"Mr. Stilinski, you're all but banging on the territory lines."

Stiles huffed out a bitter laugh and surreptitiously wiped his sweaty face on his sleeve as he turned his head to look at Deaton. "And here you always said I wasn't your padawan. But look at me now, causing a disturbance in the Force. Drew you right to me, huh?"

Lifting one hand, Deaton waggled it back and forth. "It was slightly better than Google Maps in leading me to your exact location." Quirking his lips, he looked at Derek and nodded his head in greeting.

"You have reached your destination," Stiles mocked in a robotic voice. Then, because he _had_ to know, he asked, "Do you know what's happening to me? I know Derek didn't bite me, but..." He leaned against empty air, as solid as a brick wall to him.

"You're still as human as you ever were," Deaton murmured, eyes narrowed as he looked at the place Stiles was held up by nothing. "It appears as though your sacrifice has bound you to the territory."

Stiles' gut clenched as he looked out into the forest, his gaze catching on a leaf that fluttered on a branch a few feet away. A leaf he'd never be able to touch because it was in a place he could no longer go. "I thought," he began, then had to clear his raspy throat to continue. "I thought I'd just die. I was ready for that. To give my life to keep them safe, I mean. To protect the pack, you know? _'My life, if necessary.'_ "

"Stiles," Derek whispered, something like horror in his tone. 

A small silence settled over them, but there was a weight to it. Stiles had learned in the past few years that the heavier Deaton's silence, the more he was about to say.

"Think what you know of sacrifice. When you sacrificed yourself for your father… did you die?"

Stiles jolted at those words, blinking rapidly as he tried to reorganize his entire train of thought to get on the same track as Deaton's. "N-no. I mean… a little? We were in that limbo state for a day and a half."

"But did you _die_?" Deaton stepped forward, reaching out to pluck something off the tree Stiles had been staring at in an attempt not to see the pain on Derek's face at Stiles' willingness to sacrifice himself.

"Consider a fruit tree." Deaton continued before Stiles could answer what had likely been a rhetorical question, holding up the thing he'd pulled off the tree. An acorn, apparently. "If I cut it down to reach the fruit at the top, I will have a finite amount of fruit. But if I nurture it and prune it, the tree will continue to produce fruit its whole life. You are the fruit tree. If the sacrifice took your mortality, it would feed from your magic for but a moment. In keeping you here, alive and healthy, it can instead feed for your entire life."

Wow. "So, the Nemeton is a parasite. Good to know."

Deaton tossed the acorn at Stiles; it, of course, bounced off his forehead when he failed to catch it. "Your relationship with the Nemeton is what you make of it. When you sacrificed yourself for your father, what happened?"

Stiles rubbed at the tiny prickle of sensation on his forehead. "Uh, I opened a doorway allowing a sadistic Japanese chaos demon to possess me and kill a ton of people including half the sheriff's department?"

"That was a side-effect. What was the actual result?"

Thinking hard, Stiles squinted into the middle distance even as the answer leapt to his lips. "Darkness. A darkness around my heart."

"Exactly. Sacrifice, like any commitment, requires a conscious choice. You chose your father over yourself. At any time since then, have you regretted that choice?"

"Of course not. I have my _dad._ "

"Exactly so. And with this newest sacrifice, you have your pack. It is whole and healthy. You also have stronger allies because of your actions. A worthy commitment, I think. Do you regret it?" Deaton cocked his head, considering Stiles for a moment. "If you were able to return to that night and change anything, would you?"

Stiles slumped to the ground, exhausted but mind still sharp enough for him to answer firmly, "No. I'd do it all again." He looked up at Derek, ignoring Deaton for the moment to repeat that. "I would do it again in a heartbeat to keep you safe. To keep the pack safe."

Deaton opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to notice the state Stiles was in and made a soft humming noise. "Then I believe it is time to get you home. The hospital will have called your father by now. He'll be frantic."

"That's not what you were gonna say," Stiles accused, pushing to his feet… and then only saved from falling back to the ground by Derek's quick reflexes. "Whoa."

"It's not," Deaton agreed, lifting his hand to Stiles' forehead. "But we can finish this conversation later. For now, just _sleep_."

Darkness swallowed up the world around Stiles as he fell heavily into Derek's arms.

Goddamn druids.  


* * *

  
When he woke again, it was less of a shock and more of a pleasant surprise. He was in his room, surrounded by his pack.

He had just enough strength to keep his eyes open long enough to see that everyone he actually cared about was present and accounted for — including Peter, ugh — before his eyelids fluttered closed, too heavy for him to keep them open. Gah, why did he feel so much worse now than when he'd woken in the hospital?

"Stop moving, idiot. You drained yourself trying to leave."

Stiles cracked an eyelid, frowning at Isaac. "Wasn't leaving. Wanted to touch… sign."

"Yeah, well, that's never gonna fucking happen again, is it, _Derek_?" Scott's voice was angry, bitter. These sorts of blowups from him didn't happen often, but Derek had confessed to Stiles once that he thought Scott still felt responsible for Stiles. That sort of thing was apparently hard to let go, even for a beta who'd fully accepted his place in an alpha's pack.

"Stop it," Stiles whispered, luxuriating in the feeling of his head on _his_ pillow even as he forced his eyes back open. Fuck, he was tired. 

"It's not _right,_ " Scott declared, setting his stupidly crooked jaw in a firm line. It was quick, the hot glare Scott shot Derek's way. So quick, Stiles would think he'd imagined it, but the way Derek's shoulders tightened told the truth of it.

"Hey. No! Stop that." Stiles struggled into a sitting position, tried to hold it for a second and then gave up, slumping back until he came up short against something soft — oh, Erica's boobs — as exhaustion swamped him again. "You think this is Derek's fault? It's not. It's yours. And my dad's. And Isaac's. And Erica and Boyd and Parrish and Chris and Allison and… okay, yeah. And Derek." Rolling his eyes, he grumbled, "And Jackson too, I guess. I made a choice, Scott. You don't get to lay that down on anyone else. You wanna be mad? Fine. But be mad at me. Because I am the one who chose this."

"And it _was_ a choice. I could have waited. Let you all have another minute to win. But. The potential price for that minute was too high." Stiles waited, watched the emotions rush across Scott's face. Waited for those big brown eyes to meet his. "I'd do it again, Scotty, without hesitation, even knowing the outcome. In every timeline, every dimension. I can lose everything else, okay? Disneyland can fall into the ocean, for all I care. But I can't — I won't — lose this pack. I won't lose you. Not if there's anything I can do to prevent it."

"You didn't mention _me_. I'm hurt," Peter interjected into the quiet that fell, and Stiles just snorted.

"Die mad about it."

"Amazingly, I already tried that. It didn't stick."

"Ugh."

"Okay," Scott interrupted, eyes cast down to the floor. "Okay, but what now? What about college? What about… everything?"

"I'll figure it out. I can take online classes. Hell, right now I don't even know if this is permanent. But worst case scenario, I'm locked inside Beacon Hills for the rest of my life." Stiles' gaze flickered around the room, took in everyone he loved in the world gathered around him, and met Scott's eyes again. "There are worse things," he said softly.  


* * *

  
"This is your job," Stiles muttered to himself as he pushed through the undergrowth, tripping over the occasional root as he made his way to the Nemeton. "This is what you signed up for. It's not all cool magic tricks and potions classes with a super-chill Snape. No, it's also rushing off into the spooky spooky woods to look at the Nemeton when Deaton snaps his fingers. Because it's Deaton, who thinks he's the boss of you, even if you're a really badass emissary."

And then he stopped — walking _and_ talking to himself — because he'd reached the clearing where the Nemeton stood.

"Fuck," he breathed, wide eyes taking in the view in front of him. 

His feet started working again, and he walked forward on autopilot, wide eyes staring at the tall, thin green saplings that ringed the base of the Nemeton. They seemed to have sprouted from the roots of the original tree, which made sense. The Stilinski's had a tree in their backyard that did the same thing. Only with that one, he just ran the new growth over with the lawnmower every week to take care of them.

Stiles stared at the green shoots, eyebrows as high as they could go. "I am not a…" he flailed a bit, trying to think of the word, " _tree_ -person. I don't know _why_ you think I know how to take care of you! I broke my egg in sex-ed on _day one_." He approached the Nemeton and stroked one of the soft shoots. "I am so the wrong person for this job."

"Think of it like the pack." 

Stiles screamed, nearly jumping out of his skin. Turning, he pointed a shaking finger at Derek, who had totally snuck up behind him. "You asshole! Make some goddamn noise! Do you know how many evil things we've found in these woods?" 

Derek raised an eyebrow before deliberately stomping toward Stiles. "You look better."

"I don't know _how_ , since you just gave me a damn heart attack." Stiles clutched weakly at his chest.

Derek lifted a hand, skimming his knuckles over Stiles' cheek. "There's more color here. And… your lips were very pale. Before."

Stiles' fingers clenched a bit tighter to his own shirt, trying ineffectively to hide the way his heart was thrumming a bit harder in his chest. When Derek stepped back, lowering his hand, Stiles had to bite his lips together to keep from protesting.

"Yeah, I umm." Stiles blinked around, searching for something to say that could cut through the suddenly awkward moment.

Derek took care of that for him, though, walking to the Nemeton, his back to Stiles. "Every new pack member has to be woven into the pack. Ten separate members standing alone will wither and die. But if you," Derek gently took a few of the shoots and started to wind them around one another, "tie them together, _bind_ them, the pack becomes stronger."

"Wow."

Derek ducked his head this time, a flush brightening his cheeks. "It's something my mom said once."

Stiles edged up beside him, helping his alpha braid the shoots that had grown up out of the roots of the original Nemeton into the beginnings of a sturdy young tree. After a moment, he whispered, "She was an amazing woman. Had to be, to get a son like you."

Derek dropped the shoots in his hands and stepped back, making Stiles look up when he let out a bitten-off sound of pain. 

"What is it? What—"

"I'm not. I'm _not_ …. The reason Scott was so angry the other day. I have to—" Derek's eyes darted all around the clearing, his feet still backing up a bit.

Stiles rushed forward, grabbing Derek before he could bolt. "What happened? Come on, man, talk to me."

Derek slowly dipped his chin, bringing his gaze to lock on Stiles'. There was so much pain in Derek's eyes that _Stiles_ found himself whimpering at the sight of it. "When Deaton told the pack. When he told them you couldn't leave? They all felt it."

"Who felt what?"

"The pack. They felt my…" Derek closed his eyes, his brows drawing together. "They felt my joy."

Stiles blinked. Then he blinked again, more rapidly. "Uhh, explain?"

"It was going to be hard enough, when you left for college. It's why I kept telling you no when you asked to be emissary. I couldn't… I knew I wouldn't be able to…" Derek's mouth moved, not forming words for a moment, and then he shuddered and admitted, "Let you go. But then Deaton said you _couldn't_. That you _had_ to stay here. And it was like the Nemeton was granting my wish. To keep you here. With me."

Stiles tried to tamp down the hope that flooded him at those words. "Derek. I need you to tell me what that means, because it kinda sounds like you… like you _love_ me or something and you can't let me think that if it's not true because you _know_ me, I'll have our kids' names picked out by sundown and—"

Derek's fingers over his mouth cut off Stiles' flood of words, but he still looked far too devastated when he said, his voice almost too soft to hear, "I'm in love with you, and I'm so sorry. I'm not—"

"Oh my god, you giant dork. How can you be unaware that I've been totally gone on you for _years_?" Stiles smacked Derek lightly upside the head. "Guess what, asshat? I should be freaking out about this, and I mean, I kinda did when I ran into my own personal mountain ash line and there's a high chance I'll freak out some in the future FYI, but I'm fine _now_. You know why? Because I don't feel trapped. I should. I really should. But I don't. Because you're here. And yeah, it's kinda shitty that you were like 'woo hoo' but I'm also kinda shitty sometimes, so. No judgement here."

Derek huffed out a slightly wet sounding laugh at that, but his eyes were dry as he looked into Stiles'. "You know," he finally said, voice as husky as it ever got, "since we're both fairly awful people, we should save everyone else."

Stiles cocked his head and stepped forward until their chests were almost brushing. "Yeah? How do we do that?"

"We should—" Derek's throat worked, and that uncertainty flashed across his features, but his warm hands curved around Stiles' hips like they belonged there, so. "We should date each other to save anyone else from having to date us?"

Stiles pretended to give this some thought, dragging it out long enough that Derek began to look like he was going to bolt again. "I mean," he finally said, "that sounds okay. A bit of a backward step, but yeah, dating could be a thing we do."

Derek's shoulders drooped, relief softening the set of his jaw before he lowered his gaze to Stiles' mouth. "A step back?"

"I mean, it was right here that we both said I do and pledged our lives to each other, so..."

"Idiot," Derek murmured, just before he kissed the smirk right off of Stiles' mouth.  


* * *

  
("Do you think we should combine our essences again?" Stiles asked breathlessly a little while later, head tipped back to let Derek have better access to the pale column of his throat.

"Hnn?"

"It's a new Nemeton, right? Might need to mingle our essences again." When Derek growled a little and tested the sharpness of his teeth against Stiles' mark, Stiles added, "Jizz, dude. I totally mean jizz.")


	4. Art by wildamongwolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The absolutely gorgeous art which was the inspiration for the fic "If Necessary."

**Author's Note:**

> You can find us on tumblr at [Eeyore9990](http://eeyore9990.tumblr.com) and [wildamongwolves](http://wildamongwolves.tumblr.com).


End file.
